The steel industry provides about 5% of the total U.S.
manufacturing GDP. The industry has undergone a major transformation since its recession
of the late 1980s, investing in new process and product technologies and closing older
mills. Todays steel industry is technologically sophisticated, employing more than
150,000 American production workers in jobs paying about 50% above the average for all
U.S. manufacturing [AISI and SMA 1998]. The industry creates an
additional 50,000 jobs for downstream processing.
The United States is the largest steel producer in the world, producing 107 million
tons of raw steel in 1998, nearly 13% of total world production [Iron
& Steelmaker 1999]. The industry has recently experienced large levels of imports
because of world steel overcapacity resulting from economic downturns in Asia and the CIS.
However, the industrys return on sales for both 1997 and 1998 approached 3% [AISI 1999a].
The steel industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on R&D. Over the
last 20 years, the industry has invested nearly $7 billion in environmental control
equipment.